A killer robot which can detect a human from over four miles away – and shoot them dead – could be being implemented at the Russian border.
Continue reading… “Killer Russian robot can detect humans and shoot them dead in an instant”
Can robots make moral decisions and should they?
What happens when artificial intelligence has to make tough moral choices—say, a self-driving car that must decide whether to avoid hitting a child, even if it means plowing into an oncoming vehicle full of adults?
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Never cook again when the world’s first robotic chef comes to market
Imagine never having to cook ever again but still having the luxury of eating, fine, restaurant quality dishes, within the comfort of your own home. And no, we are not talking about a personal chef here. As early as 2018 we could all be seeing and getting our hands on the world’s first intelligent cooking robot. A little device that could save you hours slaving away over a hot stove could be yours sooner than you think!
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AI: A five-point plan to stop the Terminators taking over
Tech behemoths Google, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM and Amazon announced this week that they are teaming up to develop new standards for Artificial Intelligence (AI). It’s a much-needed move. Soon AI will change everything from warfare to our bodies. But we don’t want to become slaves to the robots, so how do we stop the Terminators?
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This winter you can buy a robot to plow your driveway
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But it won’t dig out your parked car.
Plowing snow, mowing the lawn, raking leaves. It’s backbreaking work.
This season, a robot may have you covered. It’s called Kobi, and for $3,999 it can take over people’s yard work.
Continue reading… “This winter you can buy a robot to plow your driveway”
Westworld-style sex with robots: When will it happen – and is it really a good idea?
Would you have sex with a robot? An impromptu poll of colleagues and friends drew answers ranging from “yes, but only if it was a fully sentient, consenting robot” to “yes, but only if it wasn’t a sentient robot” to “yes, if I could program it and specify exactly what I wanted…no unexpected exploratory penetration, please”. (We’ve paraphrased that last one a little.)
Google’s next big step for AI: Getting robots to teach each other new skills
Robots haven’t reached human intelligence yet, but Google’s researchers are showing how they’re closing the gap using downloadable intelligence.
Imagine if you could get better at some skill not just by learning and practicing it, but by accessing the brains of others to tap directly into their experiences?
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Robots Are Developing Feelings. Will They Become “People”?
AI systems are beginning to acquire emotions. But whether that means they deserve human-type rights is the subject of a thorny debate.
When writing the screenplay for 1968’s 2001, Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick were confident that something resembling the sentient, humanlike HAL 9000 computer would be possible by the film’s namesake year. That’s because the leading AI experts of the time were equally confident.
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Construction Expert Says Robots Will Cause Thousands of Builders to Lose Their Jobs
Skyscrapers in the City of London could soon be built by robots rather than by people, according to the boss of one of the UK’s biggest construction firms. The result would be huge productivity gains as more work could be done by fewer people – but also mass layoffs as traditionally labour-intensive construction projects hire fewer and fewer staff.
Adorable robots help travelers at Haneda airport in Tokyo
Hitachi’s EMIEW3 will help travelers find their terminal.
Getting lost in an international airport is never fun — but if you’re lost in Japan’s Haneda this month, you’ll at least be able get help from an adorable talking robot. From now until the 14th, Hitachi is testing its EMIEW3 humanoid robot in the airport’s passenger terminal. Over the course of two weeks, EMIEW3 will direct visitors to an information display and answer questions in both English and Japanese.
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Walmart Patents Robot Carts
Can robot carts compete with Amazon?
A shopping cart is mostly empty space. At the end of a shopping run, when the cart is brimming with groceries and goods, it becomes fully useful, but it isn’t until that point, and once it’s full, it doesn’t help the person trying to buy two cartfulls of stuff on their own. Walmart, the physical retail giant, doesn’t want people to worry about the inadequacies of carts while shopping. So they filed a patent for a self-driving robot cart.
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Robots perform surgery inside your eyeballs
The R2D2 is magnitudes more stable than the steadiest surgeon’s hand.
Doctors at Oxford University made medical history recently by successfully completing the first robot-assisted intraocular surgery. Robert MacLaren, Professor of Ophthalmology at the university, and his team managed to gently peel off a 1/1000th millimeter membrane from the inside of a patient’s eye. To do so, the team relied on a cutting-edge medical device known as the Robotic Retinal Dissection Device, or R2D2.
Continue reading… “Robots perform surgery inside your eyeballs”
